[blindLaw] Typography

Sai sai at fiatfiendum.org
Wed Sep 25 13:31:01 UTC 2019


On the discrimination thread, a few issues related to typography came up.

1. Smart quotes are in Braille.

opening & closing single quote = ‘ & ’ =  ⠠⠦ & ⠠⠴ (that should be dot 6,
not dot 3)
opening & closing double quote = “ & ” = ⠦ & ⠴

Often straight single (') & double (") quotes are used instead, eg because
it's easier to type and to find & replace.

"Smart quotes" means that the software replaces the straight quotes I just
used with “opening & closing quotes like this”, just based on spacing.
Space before = “opening; space after = closing”; no space either side =
straight"quotes.

Straight single quote is identical to both apostrophe (for contractions
like that's) and the hours symbol (as in both time and degrees of angle);
double quotes is identical to both the vertical ditto symbol (in English)
and minutes (again both time & angle).



2. I suggest reading Matthew Butterick's book "Typography for Lawyers",
excerpted here:

https://typographyforlawyers.com/toc.html

The book itself is only available in softbound copy:

https://store.legal.thomsonreuters.com/law-products/Practice-Materials/Typography-for-Lawyers-2d/p/105523076

Perhaps some of you might contact the author & publisher to get them to
make a blind accessible version available.

Their emails are, respectively (in ready to paste format):

"Matthew Butterick" <mb at typographyforlawyers.com>, "Thomson Reuters West
accessibility" <westaccessibility at thomsonreuters.com>

If you have success, please let me know.


3. I'm a rare combination: fully sighted sometimes, fully blind other
times, experienced at writing & editing legal briefs, plus some background
in UX design.

So, if you have questions about this kind of topic that your own research
doesn't answer, feel free to ask me.

I mostly use computers fully sighted at home (eg writing briefs), except
for navigation or in normal lighting (eg taking notes in an office or
school setting), so I'm not as well versed in eg NVDA. But I might be able
to explain things at the intersection of sighted & blind.

Sincerely,
Sai
President, Fiat Fiendum, Inc., a 501(c)(3)

PS Non-gendered pronouns please. NSA et al: I'm a US citizen.

Sent from my mobile phone; please excuse the concision and autocorrect
errors.



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